Holder says W.H. not notified of Petraeus probe because no security threat

11/15/12 4:57 PM EST

Attorney General Eric Holder said on Thursday that the White House was not notified earlier about the investigation into former Gen. David Petraeus because the Justice Department determined there was no threat to national security.

Here's his full statement, via POLITICO's Talia Buford:

“I would say that with regard to that issue, what we did was conduct the investigation in the way we normally conduct criminal investigations. We do so in a way so that they can be seen as done in an impartial way. We follow the facts. We do not share outside of the Justice Department, outside of the FBI, the facts of ongoing investigations.

"We made the determination as we were going through the matter that there was not a threat to national security. Had we made the determination that a threat to national security existed, we would, of course, have made that known to the president and also to the appropriate members on the Hill. But as we went through the investigation, looked at the facts and tried to examine them as they developed, we felt very secure in the knowledge that a national security threat did not exist that warranted the sharing of that information with the White House or with the Hill.

"But when we got to a point in the investigation — and it was very late in the investigation after a very critical interview occurred on the Friday before — we made that disclosure. When we got to that point where we thought it was appropriate to share the information we did so.”